Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(76)

“And you said he didn’t know what to do with a woman,” Tucker Addison accused the tallest of the group, Ian McGillicuddy.

“I stand corrected.” Ian gave Nicolas a small salute.

Dahlia made a small distressed squeak. Nicolas picked up the gun. “I’m going to start shooting if the lot of you don’t get out and close the door.”

“What a poor sport,” Gator groused. “And it’s my house.” He reached for the doorknob, winking at Nicolas as he closed it firmly.

There was a small silence. Dahlia groaned and pulled the cover over her head. “I’m never getting up again. Go away, Nicolas and take that motley crew with you. There is no way I’m going to face all those men.”

“There weren’t that many,” he coaxed, tugging at the cover. “At least they didn’t walk in, in the middle of one of our firestorms.”

“Nicolas, I don’t have any clothes.” She sucked in her breath, her eyes going wide. “You don’t think Lily is with them, do you?”

“No, I’m sure she stayed behind with Ryland.” Throwing off the covers he stretched, then turned back to her, gathering her into his arms. She was stiff, resisting him. Nicolas blew warm air against her skin. She shivered in response. He lowered his mouth to her neck and kissed his way up to her ear.

“That’s not fair,” she pushed at him. She was utterly annoyed that she sounded breathless. That she was breathless. “You can’t be doing that.”

“You’re getting upset, and that means energy is going to come storming into our bedroom. It’s all in the line of duty.” He found her mouth, taking full advantage when she opened it to protest.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his, her tongue sliding along his teeth, teasing his tongue, drugging his senses with her potent response. He thought himself so controlled, but she shattered his discipline every time. His fist bunched in her hair and his mouth fused with hers as he held her to him. There was instant, urgent need, a tidal wave of heat pouring over both of them. He felt her breasts push against his chest. One leg wrapped around his thigh. He could feel her hot and wet and inviting. The need was beyond his ability to stop. He knew part of it was the fierce energy surrounding them and their sexual desires feeding one another, building too fast, too out of control, but it didn’t matter. Only Dahlia mattered with her petal soft skin and incredible heat.

He caught her leg, guided it around his waist to align their bodies. She made a soft kitten noise, very close to a purr that nearly made him crazy. His head roared with thunder. Lightning seemed to strike behind his eyelids, lashed through his blood. He caught her hips with both hands to hold her still while he entered her. The breath left his lungs in a sudden rush, the now familiar sparks lit up the air around them. Electricity crackled and snapped around them, barely registering in his mind. She was tight and hot and gripping him with a fierce need and hunger every bit as urgent as his own. She practically melted into him, riding him as hard as he was thrusting into her. The only thing in his mind was to bury himself deeper and harder with each stroke. He wanted to crawl inside of her, to feel her hot, slick sheath wrapped so tightly around him.

Dahlia wanted to lose herself in him, in the fire and heat and passion of Nicolas Trevane. He kept her from thinking too much, kept her from facing things and people she didn’t want to face. He did things to her body that burned up the energy, even the sexual energy surrounding them, every bit as efficiently as when she raced over rooftops in the city and through the swamps in the bayou. She could feel the pressure building too fast, too soon, a flashfire between them that ignited instantaneously and just as quickly was used up. She clung to him, digging her fingers into the hard muscle of his shoulder, attempting to take back some of the control to ride slower, wanting to curb the gathering force. It was too late. He was filling her, the friction turning her insides to an inferno, pushing them both over the edge into a wild orgasm. She lay in his arms while her body rocked and rippled. For a moment she was certain the earth moved.

Nicolas held her close to him, his face buried in the mass of silken hair, just breathing her into his lungs. “I wish we had more time, Dahlia.”

“Me too,” she agreed, turning her face up to his throat. She pressed her lips against his chin. “I wish we could go some place where no one would find us and it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t have any clothes.” She sighed. Not so much for her lack of clothes as the inevitable task of facing his friends.

“I’ll find you something to wear, Dahlia,” Nicolas said. “Stop worrying over silly things.” He lifted her chin to kiss her one more time before padding across the floor to look in his pack.

“I don’t think clothes are silly when there are men in the other room,” she pointed out. “Unless you want me to go parading around in front of them like this.”

“That wouldn’t be safe for anyone,” he said and turned to glare at her. His quick flash of primitive possessiveness died a quiet death as he looked at her. Dahlia sat in the middle of the bed without a stitch on looking incredibly sexy with her hair tousled and tumbling down her back. He swallowed a sudden lump. “You have perfect breasts.”

She laughed, just the way he knew she would, the worry in her eyes gone. “You definitely have a fixation.”

He loved the sound of her laughter. For all of her childhood nightmares and the terrible reality of her life, Dahlia found ways to laugh, to genuinely enjoy her world. Her laughter was contagious and all the more treasured because it was rare. “I love to make you laugh.”